January 5 Stanley, Falkland Islands

 

The weather settled enough for us to sail into Stanley harbour.  We cleared customs and got our passports stamped and then went ashore.  Man oh man was it cold and bleak! There was a welcoming committee of sea lions on the pier where we landed but we didn’t even warrant a second glance from them. Apart from those dozy creatures, the place looked deserted.

Stanley is a quaint place and such a surprise after where we had been recently, or maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was so very British. We did the rounds of info centre and souvenir shops and made a visit to the church.  That was an interesting building. It is the southernmost Anglican cathedral in the world built in 1890–1892 from the local stone. We were the only ones there except for a woman, maybe the verger, who told us a little about the building. It’s most imposing. The large stained-glass window was damaged during a storm last year and they have to wait until 2025 for it to be repaired; ‘head office’ back in England dictated that the replacement materials have to be English-made, go figure!  In the front of the building is a whalebone arch monument, made from the jaws of two blue whales. It was erected in 1933 to commemorate the centenary of British rule in the Falkland Islands. The weather made the place seem rather bleak (and to me the history is fairly bleak also) so we didn’t stay very long.

This gift shop was a bit like the Tardis - it went on forever.